Sunshine on Main Street
by EriLenx07
Summary: The life and times of Kurokawa Hana, exhausted BFF and future mafia lawyer. OC-SI, post-canon.
1. Chapter 1

_(I)_

It's funny—Hana had thought that she'd been pretty good about keeping Kyoko out of this bullshit world that Sawada Tsunayoshi had somehow dragged himself into.

Had he really been the one doing the dragging? Hana didn't remember. She didn't have the time to be observing him. She had her studies and she had her best friend to look after. She hadn't seen anything to be overtly concerned over, considering her situation.

After all, there hadn't been any obvious scars or injuries or anything. No particularly alarming lines of dialogue, no random bouts of crying and no unusual anxiety attacks.

She was wrong.

It wasn't obvious at first. Hana had been slightly concerned when people like Miura Haru and Dokuro Chrome had started hanging out with them so often, but she figured that canon was like a magnet. It could be played with and resisted a bit, but ultimately the force of it was nearly impossible to overcome.

Some things just didn't change, no matter how hard she tried.

So she stopped resisting the newcomers, started talking a bit more about how Kyoko needed to be more careful these days. There were lots of creepy monkeys on the streets now—it's dangerous, especially for someone so sweet and gentle.

Hana always looked into Chrome's lone eye when she said this.

She's sure the girl got the message.

The first indication that things were really going wrong, that things were really going _canon _was when Kyoko, Haru and Chrome and all the others had disappeared for a few weeks with the flimsy excuse of _sumo wrestling camp_.

God, it was like Ryohei hadn't even been _trying_ to keep this from her anymore, the asshole. But then again, he hadn't been trying very hard to begin with. The boy wasn't anywhere near as stupid as he acted, he knew a lost cause when he saw one. There's a reason why he was so damn good at that whole boxing-coach gig even though he was only fifteen.

But that was fine, whatever. At least she knew that something was going on. She wasn't a god that could somehow resist the flow of fate, she was just a scared little girl that got reincarnated into the life of a somewhat stronger girl with more things to care about.

She didn't have the courage that all the other heroic self-inserts did to run right into canon and shake things up a bit. And that was fine, honestly.

Katekyo Hitman Reborn had a happy ending, after all.

Or did it?

After all, the audience never gets to see Sawada Tsunayoshi change the mafia, or see anyone graduate middle school. They never get to see what became of the Arcobaleno's aging, if the solution to the Rainbow arc actually worked out.

In short, what the audience saw, what the previous Hana had seen lying in the bed of her hospital room, wasn't actually a happy ending. It wasn't even an ending at all.

It was a set-up. Here are the players and here is their starting point. They each have about fifty to eighty years to get from here to someplace else. What is that someplace else?

Who knows.

The point is, Hana hadn't known that at first. Hana had thought that they were done, that she and Kyoko were done with all this magical mafia bullshit, as peripheral as their involvement had been.

Their happy ending was already here.

So, suffice to say that Hana was a teensy bit surprised when Kyoko had looked her in the eye, laying across Hana's bed, eighteen, her laptop open to her college applications, and said "I'm going to join the mafia," as casually as someone might say _the sky is blue_.

Hana choked on her bitter cold brew. Kyoko reached over and hit her back and Hana curses the other girl's surprising strength. "God, work on your timing, woman," Hana complains, coughing slightly.

"Sorry," Kyoko says, somewhat sheepish, her hand gentler on her best friend's back now. "It's a bit hard to time that right."

Hana glares at her, but it is more the glare of a woman backed into a corner, afraid, than it is of someone truly angry. "You're not a criminal, Kyoko. You know that."

"I'm not," Kyoko agrees, easily enough. Hana can see the tenseness in her shoulders. "But I could be."

"Why would you even want to be?" Hana demands to know. "If this is about Sawada's little gang, then you're wasting your time. They don't want you to join that life. Just think about what Ryohei would say."

Ryohei would freak out, probably. He wouldn't yell or anything, but he'd be stubborn. Come up with a thousand reasons and excuses for why Kyoko shouldn't do it. Come down here from New York and miss a few exams to glue himself to Kyoko's side like a leach until she changes her mind.

If there is anything that Hana had in common with Sasagawa Ryohei, then it's that they would both do anything to keep Kyoko safe except for hurting her.

They could never hurt her.

Kyoko slumps on the bed, cuddling into a large cat plushie Hana had purchased a few years ago. Ryohei liked this one too, he was always laying on it whenever he came over. Not so much now that he was at university, in another country, but often enough that Hana had went and bought him one so that he'd stop stealing hers.

She liked laying on it too, after all.

"I figured you knew, too."

"It wasn't hard to guess."

"No, it wasn't," Kyoko ponders. "Hana?"

Does she have to sound so sad and vulnerable? Hana already knows where this is going. "Yeah?"

"Why does it matter?" Kyoko asks. Hana has the distinct impression that this question only has one right answer. "Why does what they want for me matter? Why does what _you _want for me matter? The only thing that should matter is what _I _want for me."

"That's true," Hana answers warily. "What do you want for you?"

"I don't want to be vulnerable anymore. I don't want to be the damsel in distress. I want to feel like a burden and I don't want to be kept in the dark all the time. I don't want every person I love to leave me, except for you."

"You just told me what you don't want, not what you want."

Everyone leaving, huh? Well, Hana knew that Chrome had tested out of a few classes to get into their grade, but she didn't know what college the girl had been planning on, if she was doing it at all. Chrome was hard to predict. Haru was probably going wherever Sawada was going—the hyperactive genius had the grades to go wherever the hell she wanted, whenever the hell she wanted.

And Sawada and his friends? They were all going to Italy, she thinks. Sawada wanted to stay with some family or whatever (_ha_), Gokudera was in Haru's boat, Yamamoto got some baseball scholarship to some prestigious university there, even with his awful grades. Stupid athletes.

Ryohei shocked almost everyone in Namimori by getting into an accelerated pediatrics program in America that he'd admired for a while (lots of outreach programs for kids that don't have access to medical care and other things that appealed to your average bleeding heart) and Hibari was a year away from graduating from Tokyo University with a dual degree in politics and business. How the hell someone who barely put any effort into his academics in middle school and high school managed to get away with that was anyone's guess.

Kyoko frowns. "I want to be an engineer. I want to be stronger. I want to live life to the fullest."

Large, doe-brown eyes meet Hana's duller blue-grey. Hana knows she is lost. "I want an _adventure_, Hana."

And what, exactly, can Hana say to that, really? No? No, stay here and be bored, stay here and be lonely because you'll only have me?

"Do you know what Haru's doing?" Hana asks, abruptly.

Kyoko nods. "She likes the same university I do, right now. She's already applied. She wants to be closer to Tsuna. You know she still has a thing for him."

She was better about that now, at least. "She has a thing for you too," Hana points out.

If it were possible, then Kyoko would've slumped even further into the plushie. "I _know_," she says, rare exasperation seeping into her normally upbeat voice. "I know, but what am I supposed to do about that? I don't even know if I'm into girls!"

"Ignore it for now and experiment at uni before addressing it," Hana suggests.

Kyoko is an easy person to fall for. If Hana were interested in women, then she would have been face-first in the romantic pavement at Kyoko's feet long ago. That's how she knows she isn't.

Kyoko knows she likes men well enough, but she'd never been very good at deciding how she felt about other girls. Hana thinks she's bisexual with a preference for men, but that's for Kyoko to figure out.

"That's a good idea." It's a good thing that whatever flame Sawada had held for Kyoko had simmered down into a fiercely intimate sort of friendship over the years, or Kyoko would have a very messy life right now. Maybe she should talk to him about it—he's gotten good at differentiating sparks from glimmers, from what Hana has heard about him.

But then again, with all the times he'd been propositioned in high school, Hana also thinks that he might be aromantic. Who knows?

"All of my ideas are good," she says instead.

"Sure," Kyoko says. "The Polytechnic University at Milan has a good engineering program. They do social sciences too. Like, law and stuff."

Kyoko likes to avoid somethings. She avoids them and avoids them until she's backed into her own emotional little corner and then she does something drastic when she can't back away anymore, like applying to school in Milan and joining the mafia.

Hana supposes this is why Kyoko had insisted that Italian be their foreign language back in their freshman year of high school. What a goddamn schemer.

"You don't have to apply. But I will, and I know we've always wanted to room together. And come on, Milan's such a beautiful place. The _fashion_ Hana, the _fashion_."

Hana always did have a weakness for pretty clothes.

"Can't you be an engineer without breaking the law?" Hana asks, defeated. She is already putting the Polytechnic University at Milan on her application list.

Kyoko flutters her eyelashes, an angelic smile forming on her dainty lips. "But Hana, where's the fun in that?"

* * *

Hana will be the first to admit that at seventeen years old, goddamn was Sawada Tsunayoshi a bombshell, objectively speaking.

Future CEO of Vongola Corp., student of business at the European School of Economics in Milan and current boss of the most powerful mafia family in the world, Sawada almost looked like he fit in the too-large chair behind the too-fancy desk in his too-spacious office.

It was odd, how all his features fit on his face now, how obvious the European cast on his otherwise Japanese traits was, how his form was now lithe instead of lanky. If he'd been a bit taller, then Hana may have even considered him her type.

"I had a weird feeling when you guys told me that you'd decided to come to school here in Milan too," Sawada said, rubbing his forehead as though he were fighting an oncoming migraine. He probably was. "I was hoping that you guys just wanted to be closer to everyone, since Onii-san's studying in America and he would have had to split his vacations between here and Japan, otherwise."

Sawada and Kyoko were pretty similar in some ways, beyond their petite statures and deep brown eyes. They were both a bit too good at deluding themselves—a blessing and a curse.

"That's your own fault, Tsuna-kun," Kyoko informs the man cheerfully. "You should've just asked—I would've been honest with you!"

Hana has to wonder if that was really all that honest of her to say.

Sawada is hardly fooled. "He's going to kill me," the young-looking man groans. "Completely pulverize me. Have you ever been punched by that man? It hurts. A lot."

Kyoko laughs. "I kickbox, remember? We've sparred."

"Right," Sawada says. It's easy to forget. Kyoko doesn't look like she's afraid of being weak. "How'd you even do it, anyways? These things are supposed to go through Hayato, he would have told me."

"I asked Reborn-san nicely."

Sawada's forehead hits the hardwood of the desk. "Of course," he mutters. He lifts his head, finally deigning to address Hana. "And you just went along with this?"

Hana sighs and shrugs, somewhat discomforted by the intensity of his gaze. There are orange flecks in his eyes. However Sawada feels about Kyoko, he always wants to protect her. "You know what they say. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Kyoko, newbie mechanical engineering student, has an internship with a very secretive, hardly existent, section of Vongola Corp.'s science division. Hana knows the one, so does Sawada. He likes it about as much as she does.

"Is that why you're here? To join us?"

Kyoko's gaze is on her now too. "I'm here to watch out for Kyoko," Hana says instead. "Try to keep her out of trouble. And…"

Hana pauses. She hates how they've gotten under her skin over the past five years, the lot of them. Too much proximity because of the resident sunshine siblings. She cares, now, and she hates how hard that makes it to protect her selfish self. "You guys are a bunch of idiots. You need a good lawyer."

Kyoko beams like the noonday sun and Sawada lets his head fall into his hands again like the failure of a protector that he is, like a man who's about to get burned so hard that there'll be nothing left come sundown.

"Guys…" Sawada trails off. "You don't know how hard I've been trying to keep you both out of this, to keep you guys _safe_. This life isn't about fun and games, it's dangerous and you could—"

"Tsuna-kun," Kyoko interrupts softly. Hana knows that Sawada is all kinds of weak for that voice. "Did we ever ask you to do that?"

Sawada has nothing left to say to that.

* * *

It's fall break and Sasagawa Ryohei is here. Hana doesn't know how she feels about him, not really.

She knows that in canon, they're together. She is his happy ending, his fiancée, his sunshine on the Main Street.

But that was canon—why did she have to follow that? Why couldn't she be her own damn person?

Hibari was attractive. She could have him instead. Hell, she could have anyone. Yamamoto. Cavallone. Someone whose name she doesn't even know!

But Hibari and Yamamoto are probably psychopaths and she's had maybe three conversations with the pretty older blonde. She's not good at forming deep emotional bonds with new people anymore. She hasn't been since she started remembering things, which was after she met Kyoko and Ryohei.

And it's not that Ryohei's a bad choice or anything. He didn't treat her like some sensitive little girl that couldn't handle the truth and he was so loud—his voice, his breaths, even in his sleep.

Hana didn't like the quiet anymore.

Worse yet, he's very attractive, in a rugged sort of way. His face is all angles and scars, his body decorated by strong muscles. He was tall too.

He was warm and he was caring and he made Hana feel like the sun was shining whenever he was there.

In truth, Hana liked him a bit too much, and that scared her.

After all, Hana hadn't been able to keep Kyoko safe, hadn't been able to keep her close. Too scared, too lost, too confused. Hana had said that she wouldn't be involved, that she wouldn't be a lawyer, that she'd do things _her _way.

But Hana likes looking through political articles, likes watching court cases, feels strongly about criminal justice. Being a lawyer feels right and Hana would be a fool not to pursue what makes her happy.

However, that leaves her with the following questions—how much agency does she really have? In canon, she is a lawyer that is best friends with Sasagawa Kyoko, is going to marry Sasagawa Ryohei and is clearly, in some way, intrinsically tied to the Vongola.

In reality, she is a pre-law student who is best friends with Kyoko, is probably falling for Ryohei and soon enough, she will be the Vongola family's defense lawyer.

It was all too similar. Is she really even making her own decisions? Or are these just the only paths that fate has deigned to leave her with?

Maybe it's that she and her canon self are just that similar. Canon!Hana had never really stood out to her back then and her memory is imperfect. She doesn't know.

"You guys don't know what you're getting into," Ryohei is pleading. "It's extremely dangerous, you haven't seen—"

"I've already gotten this talk from Tsuna-kun, Chrome _and _Hana," Kyoko says, soothingly. "You can't change my mind. You know how stubborn I am."

Ryohei shakes his head. "I'll have to transfer to a school in Italy, or drop out. I can't take a risk as extreme as this one."

"Oh my god, shut up," Hana says, flat as can be. "Idiot. You left for a reason, didn't you? You've wanted that program ever since you found out about it at that tournament all those years ago. Don't you _dare_ abandon your dreams because you don't trust us."

Ryohei, for all that he loves the thrill of the fight, is a healer at heart. He will be a mafia doctor, the way that Kyoko will be a mafia engineer and Hana will be a mafia lawyer.

"I trust you," Ryohei protested hotly. "I extremely do! But all the trust in the world doesn't change the fact that I have five more years of experience in this than you do and you _know _that."

"I haven't been completely blind," Kyoko argues, her eyes narrowed. "You give me too little credit. I can take care of us."

"You can fight hand-to-hand against normal people," Ryohei corrects. "The people in this world aren't normal."

"Neither am I."

If Hana hadn't seen this particular trick before, then she would have cried witchcraft. As it is, Hana can hardly be surprised by the terrifyingly real butterfly that appeared in the palm of Kyoko's hand. If she touched it, she would feel soft dusty wings and tickling antennae.

Ryohei leans back and for a moment, Hana has to pity him, this poor older brother whose baby sister grew up too fast. "Chrome taught you, didn't she?"

"Mukuro-san helped, after I bothered him enough," Kyoko agreed. "Chrome doesn't have much teaching experience. I'm pretty good."

Hana snorted. She bets Rokudou regrets ever letting their pretty little menace get his phone number.

Ryohei shakes his head. "I don't even want to know how that went. What about you, Hana?"

In truth, Hana hadn't taken learning any combat skills very seriously. Her pre-law curriculum was rigorous and she didn't know what she wanted to do yet. "Can you shoot a gun?"

Ryohei's eyes narrow and Hana knows he's pissed. "It's not my thing. I can show you how to throw knives."

Hana nods. "That works."

This is going to be a long week.

* * *

**A/N:**

**Should I be starting another fic right now? Nope. Am I going to anyways? Yup. This fandom doesn't have enough post-canon content, or enough Hana, so I decided to fix that. **

**Please let me know what you think about this! **


	2. Chapter 2

(II)

"You don't seem like the type, you know," Hana noted idly as she stood in front of the target. Ryohei was correcting her stance, physical as always. "For knife-throwing."

It was true. Knife-throwing required lots of precision, which Hana was good at, she had steady hands. She was always one of the first ones to be chosen in P.E. for a reason. Ryohei had always seemed like he had too much energy to keep so steady.

But then again, Ryohei was also apparently precise enough with extremely volatile magic to be a halfway decent healer that hasn't given anyone cancer yet, so.

Maybe it suited him just fine after all.

"My shishou always said that staying a one-trick-pony is like giving myself an extreme death sentence." Ryohei shrugged, calloused hands pushing lightly on her stomach. "Don't keep your ribs so stiff. Your position needs to be more fluid so you can react quickly."

Ryohei had a shishou. Hana vaguely recalls that from Hitman Reborn, but she didn't know that in this life.

That makes sense. Hitman Reborn is, after all, a story told through the eyes of Sawada Tsunayoshi. Sawada would have known about Ryohei's shishou and his training, his abilities, but that's about it—an older Sawada would know more about Ryohei because he cared more, but not a younger one. The younger one was always too caught up in his own problems.

A story from Hana's perspective, however, would have shown other things about Ryohei. A story told from Hana's eyes would have shown a Ryohei that had to spend all night studying to maintain his academic standing so he could stay the captain of the boxing club. It would show all the worried glances Kyoko would send the boys when they weren't looking and perhaps most importantly, it would show that there are more people in Namimori than just the Vongola Tenth Generation and their allies.

"What're they like?"

A fond grin graced his lips. "Energetic. Focused. Colonello-shishou knows how to work someone to the bone and have fun doing it."

Hana chuckled, rotating her wrist. It was getting stiff. "Sounds like someone else I know."

"He's an extremely great role model. Slouch your shoulders, this isn't about pride—just like that. Extremely good, Hana!"

Ryohei and his _extremes_. It was cute. Annoying, but a cute kind of annoying. That described Ryohei pretty well.

"Thanks." It's been twenty minutes already and she hasn't thrown a knife yet. She's so impatient.

"Your feet need to be farther apart by a couple of inches."

Hana shifted. "You've been surprisingly calm about all this."

"A bit more, there you go. I'm not fifteen anymore."

"You freak out whenever Kyoko scrapes her knee."

"Who says I'm not freaking out on the inside?" Ryohei asks, rare frustration seeping into his voice. "If there's one thing I know about Mists, it's that they have no concept of _no_. All they know how to process is _yes _and _yes, but you won't know about it_."

Hana thinks about how Kyoko had told her that she was going to apply to Milan-Polytechnic with or without her, how she was going to join the mafia regardless of how much it terrified Hana because that was just what she _wanted_. What she had convinced herself that she needed.

And Kyoko wasn't the only one who did that—god knows how many times Chrome's done stupid, spiteful things like attending her mother's social events just to make the woman uncomfortable or letting people she doesn't like in group projects despair before finally swooping in with all of her work near the end.

Hana didn't even want to start about the things she's heard about other Mists. The less is said about Rokudou and his little nightmare apprentice the better.

"So it's a hell of a lot better to just accept it and try to support her. Before she goes behind my back and does something extremely stupider." Ryohei shook his head. "I'd rather see it coming than be blindsided by her future hospital visits."

Hana got that. She would have rather known about all the anxiety that Kyoko had finally confessed to have had over her brother's safety, over what her friends had done to protect her, when they had been on the plane to Milan years ago, thank you very much.

Kyoko was too good at hiding things until it was too late to do anything about them.

Ryohei placed a knife into her grip. "Try it."

Steady hand, eyes on the target. Feel your body, don't look at it.

_Thunk_.

Hana didn't think she would ever hit anything other than dead center, if that sunshine grin will always be her reward.

* * *

Sometimes, Hana felt like her life was something out of a movie rather than an anime. Beautiful city, quiet, boogie cafes and designer clothes.

And the mafia too, but that was besides the point.

Ordinarily, Hana would never have been able to afford such luxuries. She'd be drowning in student loans.

But Sawada had other ideas.

"Just take them," he'd said, placing the credit cards on the table with an air of visceral disdain that she'd never thought Sawada, of all people, could be capable of.

"Are you sure?" Kyoko had asked, eyeing the man with some concern. "You can't just give us access to the Vongola personal accounts like this, Tsuna-kun. It's terribly irresponsible. You know that."

Sawada had waved her off easily. "God, yes. The amount of money we have is absurd. No one should be this rich. Spend it all, I don't care."

Part of the reason why it had always been so hard to believe that Sawada was a mafia boss in training was that, well… he had never really _looked _the part.

Oh, sure, he had never lived uncomfortably or anything, but his sweatshirts had always been a bit frayed, his backpacks continuously mended. He should have had more hospital bills than he actually did. He was never rich and it was pretty clear that if he spent any more time staring at the Vongola bank accounts, then he'd probably turn communist before long.

"Can I buy a mansion?" Haru asked, eyes sparkling with fantasy.

Sawada stared her dead in the eye. "_Do it_."

_So_, it was safe to say that the girls had some room to splurge on expensive cakes and the like. Hana's blouse was worth over _fifty euros _and goddamn did it feel good. She was starting to see why some women were so satisfied with the whole trophy-wife life.

It was just too bad that that would have bored her terribly.

Looking around though, between the four of them, Hana couldn't help but be reminded of a rich housewives club. Pretty clothes, quality makeup and thin waists.

Kyoko, Haru, Chrome and Hana were anything but, however.

"You have some paint on your cheek, Chrome-chan."

That wasn't an uncommon observation. Chrome is an art student now, as skilled at painting things onto a canvas as she is at painting them into people's minds.

"Thank you," the younger girl said, delicately wiping off the drop of red. It was absurd, how the most powerful woman in the room looked by far the weakest. "It's easy to forget."

"I think we're all a bit too good at getting lost in our work," Haru says mischievously. "Shou-kun nearly blew up the whole lab yesterday because he couldn't take his eyes off of some stats tests he was running for over two seconds, hahi!"

Kyoko laughed, warm and whole-hearted. "Oh, it wasn't that bad. Remember that one time when Spanner's new robot malfunctioned and chased everyone around the lab for an hour?"

"Everyone?" Haru asks, pouting. "You cheated! You let it chase around an illusion of yourself while you just kept working! And you didn't even have the curtesy to replace anyone else, either!"

"Exercise is good for you," Kyoko demurs. Chrome's lips quirk up. "We've taught you well."

"No," Hana snorts. "You've corrupted a perfectly good human being, is what you did."

Chrome shrugs. "Same thing."

"I'm installing illusion-detectors in the next prototypes," Haru declares.

"We haven't designed any yet that work in that type of system," Kyoko points out.

"Yet."

Haru is a genius, it's only a matter of time.

While Kyoko isn't a genius like her coworkers, she makes up for what she lacks in IQ points with sheer creativity and determination. She has to work twice as hard as any of them to come up with new Flame technologies, what with her lack of experience, but she's good at learning on the go and thinking outside the box.

It's admirable.

Hana rolls her eyes. "Neither of you will be coming up with anything if you don't start coming back to the house at reasonable hours. You can't survive on three hours of sleep and five espresso shots everyday forever."

"Of course not," Haru says, horrified. "We'd be dead without at least a can or two of Monster, too."

Kyoko nods empathetically. Hana reintroduces her face to her palm as Chrome pats her back consolingly.

"Oh, enough about work," Haru declares. Hana was only too glad for the change in subject. "How was last night's date, Hana-chan?"

Ah, how Hana loved to fail the Bechdel test. "It was decent."

Kyoko looked quite disapproving. "Decent?" Everyone knew that Kyoko thought that Hana ought to stop dating around and just settle down with Ryohei already, but nonetheless respected her decisions.

"He's attractive enough." Hana liked to consider herself a connoisseur of pretty men, after all—a certain level of attractiveness was to be expected from any of her choices. For all that she enjoyed dating around, ultimately it was her fear of commitment that kept her doing it, so she was never terribly picky with personality, as long as they were tolerable. Hana had thought that the boy she had had sex with for the first time in her junior year of high school was quite boring, actually, but he was pretty and she was curious. It worked.

"That's it?"

Hana shrugs. "He had some interesting opinions on Italian politics."

"So does everyone," Kyoko dismissed. "You just like wasting your time with boring men."

"Everyone's a little boring after you've met the people we have," Chrome points out. "I suppose we're all ruined."

Haru nods with enthusiasm. "I mean, Tsu-kun—"

"—is probably not even interested in human beings, period?" Hana interjects, dryly. There wasn't a point in entertaining the girls delusions anymore. They were adults now.

Haru glares back at her. "That isn't true!"

"It is," Chrome says, amused. This isn't the first time they've had this conversation, but Haru can be a bit stubborn. Hana doesn't think the girl herself believes in it much anymore, honestly. It was more habit than anything, security.

"How would you know? Did he say so?"

"No. I just know."

Regardless of how they like to act, all belligerent and argumentative, the Vongola Tenth Generation is obnoxiously, intimately close. They weren't to begin with, Hana remembers, but they've certainly become so over the years. Even Rokudo and Hibari couldn't escape the Sawada effect.

Chrome would know.

Haru frowns, but doesn't argue. She's smart, she knows a losing battle when she sees one. Instead, the conversation turns to Bianchi's recent disappearance on a long term mission and her avoidance of Reborn. Safer waters.

As safe as they would ever be.

* * *

It was two weeks into her first semester. Hana was calling Ryohei for the first time in days—differing time zones made it so hard.

"What do you think about Yamamoto?" she asked, not entirely sure if she wanted the answer. He seemed nice enough, but there was always something...off about him.

But if she was going to defend these idiots someday, then she really did need to know more than just Sawada and Ryohei.

Ryohei had paused, as though this was somehow an odd question. "He's a swell guy," he said, finally. Ryohei was a terrible liar. "His heart is in the right place. He'd do anything for the family. I respect that."

Hana snorted. "The unabridged version, please. With all the time I spend with you monkeys, you'd think that you people would stop thinking of me as some kind of delicate flower."

Ryohei laughed, genuine and breathy. "Fair enough. He's a sociopath."

"Oh, well, that's just great," Hana said. "Elaborate."

"The thing about him is that he's not a bad person, but it's not that he's not a bad person because he's naturally not a bad person."

Convoluted, but Hana thinks she kinda gets it. The only reason why Yamamoto isn't a serial killer is because he decided not to be, not because he isn't actually a serial killer.

"He looks at human behavior and he gets it, but not because he empathizes with it, but like the way you'd look at a signaling pathway or something like that. He gets the components and he knows how it works, but he doesn't feel any of it going on inside of him."

"He seems social enough with you guys."

"Well, yeah, but it's not really that. Flame bonds work on instinct and base human emotions that even people like him have. The relationships he has with us are as close to normal as he'll ever get."

God, Flames are terrifying. From the way Ryohei put it, Yamamoto was some kind of a ticking time bomb—one that would have gone off long ago if not for Tsuna cutting all the right wires five years ago.

"So when you say that he isn't a bad guy…" Hana trails off.

"What I mean is that _Tsuna _is an extremely good person and as long as Tsuna stays as extremely good as he is, then so will Takeshi. But if Tsuna ever goes off the rails, then it would be a bloodbath."

"He's literally Sawada's pet serial-killer," Hana sums up. She can practically hear Ryohei wince.

"He does all the hard missions," Ryohei says instead of answering. "They're not very… extreme."

And that was the end of that. Or, so she'd thought.

But then, about a week later, she found herself sitting across from Yamamoto Takeshi at her favorite table in the university library and wondering if she should be terrified or not.

"You aren't a student here," Hana accused. Yamamoto attended a smaller college on the other side of the city. It was a good one, but not as science-heavy as this one. It was funny, since his major was applied physics.

Yamamoto laughed. "Ah, no. But Tsuna asked me to come talk to you and I know you're usually here around this time, so."

Yeah, she should definitely be terrified. "So. That's not creepy at all."

"Nope," he agrees with a smile. Oh god. "You don't need to be so nervous. Why would I hurt family?"

"I don't know what goes through that monkey brain of yours," Hana snapped back, defensive. "You tell me."

Yamamoto frowned and somehow this expression was much less unsettling. This man is only ever truly unthreatening when Sawada or another of his Guardians was around. Hana liked it better when he wasn't trying to hide it. "I wouldn't," he affirmed. "I promise."

Yamamoto kept his promises.

Hana decided to get to the point. "What did Sawada want you to talk to me about?"

"Mafia politics," he said. "I'm the best at it, except for Mukuro, but he threatened to kill off an entire division if he had to teach anything to anyone else, so Tsuna decided to give him a break and asked me to do it."

Well. It's not like mafia lawyers had the freedom to be blissfully ignorant of such things.

"Cool," she said. "Then teach me your ways and let me study in peace."

He laughed again. "We should have hung out more often back in Namimori. You're a fun person, Kurokawa."

Hana stares at him incredulously. Yamamoto holds his hands up in a gesture of peace. "Fine, fine. So, what would you do if I killed someone and then got myself caught? As the family lawyer, I mean."

As if Yamamoto would ever get caught.

She frowned, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. "Defend you, of course."

Yamamoto nodded understandingly. "Of course. Okay, but imagine I killed a five year old. What do you do then?"

Hana swallowed silently. The way he said that...she barely held back a shiver. It was casual, too casual. Even while explaining a hypothetical situation, she would never be able to say those words like that. "Why… why did you kill the five year old?"

Yamamoto raised an eyebrow. "Why does that matter?"

"Lawyer one-oh-one," Hana said, lying through her teeth. "I need the full story to come up with a plausible defense."

"Hm. Okay. This five year old is going to become the boss of a family that will threaten ours, like, _a lot_. They could kill you someday. Me. Tsuna. Kyoko. Torture us, violate us. I'm eliminating a threat before it can hurt the people we love. Is that easier to defend?"

Hana nodded slowly. Yes, it was. Hana wasn't good enough of a person for it not to be.

"Cool. Alright, so what if I did it just because I felt like it?"

"You wouldn't," Hana shot back immediately. Wouldn't he? She hopes not. Desperately.

Yamamoto smiles. "'Course I wouldn't. But what if I did? What if I did it because I wanted to shut the kid up, because they were annoying me? What if I did it just because red's a nice color on my sword? Would you still defend me?"

Hana knew her answer. She also knew the correct answer.

They weren't the same answer.

"No, right? But what if… say, Kyoko was the one to do it? Or Ryohei? You love them a lot, don't you?"

They wouldn't. They would never. They wouldn't kill anyone, much less a child.

"Same reason. Same age. What do you do?"

"I…" What would she do? Would she condemn them? These people that she loves, these people that she is practically diving headfirst into the dark for?

Hana is suddenly reminded of how dubious her own morality can get. "You know the answer to that."

"You're very predictable like that," he agrees easily. "You should work on that. So, what makes those two scenarios so different? Why would you defend them, but not me?"

God, what a smug bastard. He knows something that Hana doesn't, she can practically feel it radiating from that casual posture, that easy grin. She can't really explain it, but Hana's always been a good judge of character and Yamamoto isn't that great an actor.

"Selfishness," she answers finally. "Neither of you are really defendable in this situation, but I benefit more from defending Ryohei or Kyoko than I would you."

"Right! That's exactly it," he says, almost as if he is proud. "People are really funny like that. They go on and on about morals and stuff like that, but at the end of the day none of it actually matters. You're always going to make the decision that's best for the people you like best, because that's the decision that'll make _you _feel the best."

"Get to the point, monkey." Hana could see what Ryohei was talking about—there was something oddly detached about the way that Yamamoto talked about people.

He laughed too much. "Sure. The point is that there is no difference between us anymore. You don't get to pick and choose who you defend, no matter who they are, no matter why they did what they did. If they're Vongola, then they're your problem now."

Yamamoto gets up, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as though they'd just been casually studying, not discussing cold-blooded murder. "Rule number one of the mafia game: you don't come before the family. We're all the same now."

Not for the first time, Hana wonders just what, exactly, Kyoko has gotten her into now.

If she wanted, she could probably ask Sawada for a way out. She could go be a normal person, in a normal town, with a normal job that won't make her treat her best friends the same way she would treat a serial killer.

She should...but ultimately, Hana knew that she wouldn't. She couldn't just...cut everyone out of her life. She had plenty of normal friends, sure, but those normal friends weren't Sasagawa Kyoko, so bright and warm and brilliant.

She's made her bed. It's time to lay in it.

* * *

**A/N**

**I'm not sure about how I feel about this chapter, but nonetheless I hope y'all enjoyed it! The Hana/Takeshi dynamic is one that I've never explored before, but nonetheless I intend to use it to its full potential. **

**Please leave a review with your thoughts and have a wonderful day! **


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